Amateur astronomer Scott Tilley made international headlines when he rediscovered NASA’s IMAGE satellite 13 years after it mysteriously disappeared. In this interview with Freethink, Scott discusses his role in the satellite’s recovery, why he enjoys amateur astronomy, and how citizen scientists like him have contributed to our knowledge of space from the space race to the present day.
Source: Scott Tilley and Freethink Media
The Perseid meteor shower 2016.
This year I want to try and receive passing meteors from the Perseid meteor shower. Below a table for the coming days with direction and time to receive the meteors. Receptions is done with the help of the Graves radar that transmits on 143.050 and the signal is then reflected by passing meteors.
| Table: The Perseid meteor shower 2016 – seen from The Netherlands: | ||||||||||||||
| Date | Best | Δt | Radiant | Meteors per hour | Sun | Moon | ||||||||
| time | direction | Altitude | swarm | total | hight | hight | fase | |||||||
| 9/08 | 3:30 | -88u | NE | 56° | 9 | 25 | -18° | -34° | 34% | |||||
| 10/08 | 3:30 | -64u | NE | 56° | 16 | 31 | -19° | -32° | 43% | |||||
| 11/08 | 3:30 | -40u | NE | 57° | 29 | 44 | -19° | -28° | 53% | |||||
| 12/08 | 3:30 | -16u | NE | 57° | 52 | 67 | -19° | -23° | 62% | |||||
| 13/08 | 3:30 | 8u | NE | 58° | 59 | 74 | -20° | -17° | 72% | |||||
| 14/08 | 3:30 | 32u | ENE | 58° | 36 | 50 | -20° | -11° | 80% | |||||
| 15/08 | 3:30 | 56u | ENE | 59° | 19 | 34 | -20° | -4° | 87% | |||||
| 16/08 | 4:30 | 81u | ENE | 67° | 9 | 21 | -15° | -4° | 94% | |||||
Last night I used a FUNcube Dongle Pro+ and SpectrumLab to listen for some signals and was successful as you can see in the below image.
When you tune your receiver in USB and listen you will hear a typical sound that is also different based on intensity.
Below an example:
The Camras WebSDR solution gives you the opportunity to receive and hear the meteors passing by.
The Dwingeloo Radio-telescope dish will be placed back on the Tower next week.
Peter Bennema (ASTRON – restoration project leader Dwingeloo Radio-telescope) posted the following message on twitter:
“Exciting: Monday, November 19 11:00 the dish of the Dwingeloo radio-telescope will be placed back on the tower.”
Homepage and other references:
Camras website (PI9CAM)
Close-up image captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the July 6, 2012 X-class flare captured in the 171 Angstrom wavelength.
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA
An Insider Tour
It’s a long movie about arecibo but well worth it.